US owes London £891k in unpaid congestion charges

[Blackleaf]

US OWES US £891K

By Jon Clements

AMERICA owes London £891,000 in unpaid congestion charges, figures released yesterday show.

The US embassy has refused to pay the road charge, now £8, since July 2005 claiming it is a tax and officials are exempt.

Mayor Ken Livingstone said: "We are entitled to expect US diplomats living in London to respect British law. British diplomats in the US pay American tolls and charges.

"US diplomats should respect our law and pay the congestion charge."
The mayor argues it is not a tax, but a fee for the service of reducing traffic.

The US pays congestion charges in Singapore and Oslo, the Greater London Assembly discovered.

Each year the charge raises £122million to help fund public transport.

mirror.co.uk
----------------------

Getting paying it......NOW! The British have to pay similar charges in New York.

Damn Yanks.

 

[CanEcosse]

Wow Blackleaf - this post has nothing to do with bashing Scotland ---- well done on you !

Anyways the situation described brings to mind another similar episode regarding parking and Americans. When I lived in Canada in a city that bordered a well known American city there were several Americans who came to frequent a famous tourist attraction located in the downtown area. There were several areas where they could park for free and other areas that were designated (clearly with large signs) that read 'Parking Permit area'. If you parked in the permit area without a permit, your vehicle would be ticketed and possibly towed away. During my residence in that area I saw several American vehicles park in the permit zone without a permit (while there were several available spaces in the free parking area nearby). Some of these vehicles were ticketed and a few were towed away. I remember seeing several Americans getting into their vehicles (which had been ticketed) ripping up the tickets and throwing them away on the pavement. Apparently they believed that the Canadian parking regulations didn't apply to them because they were American !

When I went to pay a visit to the local parking authority office to investigate about this I was told that the Secretary of State from that American state would assist the province in collecting the parking fines. However this did nothing to stop the arrogance of some visitors (or their reading skills with road signs).

 

[Daz_Hockey]

RE: US owes London £891k

I remember this, The US government classes the congestion charge s a "local tax" to which they believe they never have dealings with.